


the sea beneath, the journey home

by christchex



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:21:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21696835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/christchex/pseuds/christchex
Summary: Arya Stark sails west, to find adventure, to find lost lands, and to find herself again.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Comments: 11
Kudos: 53
Collections: Holiday Giftfest of Doom





	the sea beneath, the journey home

**Author's Note:**

> For [Katie](https://isakvaltersnake.com/my_fic)
> 
> Written for my massive holiday fit challenge of doom, where I write a new fic/ficlet for every day of December. Originally posted to my tumblr.

Eventually the coast blurs until it is one with the sky and Arya turns from her family, her home, and focuses on the ship around her. The men are all experienced sailors, all with more experience than her for all that she is technically better traveled, and they know their business. She does not have to worry about directing, about actually captaining her ship.

She breathes in the salt air, a deep breath that feels more like purification than anything else. Out here she cannot smell the fire, the smoke, the burning and rotting flesh of King’s Landing and of the North. Here, surrounded by nothing but the great salt water sea, she can forget about the death and destruction. Here she can forget No One. She can forget the legacy of the Starks. She can forget about it all without forgetting herself. Here, at sea, she can learn how to be.

-

At night the gentle rock of the ship lures her to sleep. She sleeps in a hammock, same as the rest of her men. It swings her as the sea rocks a lullaby. On the wind she hears the great songs, the tales of love and battle the men sing as the dark calls them all to sleep. At night she lays and images a life where the stories were not real, where the frost only nipped and didn’t bring worse than death. She imagines a life like the one her father once promised her- a good husband, a household to run. She imagines a life where she could be content.

The ship gives a lurch and she remembers that life was never one she wanted.

She turns over and turns off her mind. Thinking has never helped her anyway.

-

Two weeks at sea and they do not expect to see anything beyond that. Arya stands at her desk with a map open in front of her. Her navigator stands at her side as they debate the best course. Neither know for sure, any travel to the west has been avoided and Arya did not consult with the remaining Ironborn before she left.

Arya did not consult with anyone beyond the shipwrights and the sailors on the docks. She had not consulted her family, just told them she was leaving.

She never told Gendry she was leaving at all.

“My lady,” her navigator addresses her, “we should reach land within two weeks, if the weather holds.”

She nods her agreement before she turns her attention to her quartermaster.

“And our supplies?”

“They will hold for months, as long as we find fresh water on land, my lady.”

She nods again.

“Then we stay the course,” she says as she rolls up the map. 

-

There is plenty on a ship to keep her mind occupied, but the night wrecks the careful control she has over herself. At night her mind wanders to the far corners of Westeros, to her brothers on opposite ends of the continent, to her sister ruling in the North, to the bastard blacksmith lord in the Stormlands.

Every night the men sing on the deck. They gather to tell stories and to sing songs. She leaves them to it, afraid to hear her own song, afraid they will ask about the Long Night and the Night King.

Sometimes they sing the new songs, but often they keep to the older ones, the ones they heard as they grew, the songs that gives comfort.

Arya lays in her hammock as their voices sing about a lady of the forest and the little lord who loved her.

She does not think of a similar story, a lady of the forest who was actually a Lady and the boy who loved her when she was covered in filth, when she was covered in silk.

-

“Land!”

The cheers of her crew quickly drowns out the cry from the crows-nest. Four weeks at sea is not that long, not for seasoned sailors or even for a woman who traveled the discovered world, but four weeks where it is uncertain that there is even land is a strain.

It is still far in the distance, but the breaks in the horizon can be seen even so far out to sea.

Arya smiles at the exuberance of her crew until she sees a speck in the distance, which grows closer the longer she looks. Her smile starts to fall as the distinct shape of a raven forms.

Her first mate gives her a look, but she gives him a reassuring smile. Only one type of creature could find them, no raven could be trained to fly to the unknown. This raven had her brother riding its back.

She lifts her hand and the raven flies to her. It lands with ease and stays still as she releases its paper burden. It flies away the moment the note is free.

-

At night she lights a single candle and sits on the deck of her ship. The light does not cast shadows, it is too small to do that, too weak. She imagines the flickers of fire against the carved direwolves, against the folds of the banners and the sails.

She imagines the heat of a forge as it warms her to her core.

She reads the words on the paper her brother sent, over and over as if it would give her more answers.

> The lesser Lords of the Stormlands have asked me to intervene on their behalf, as their liege Lord refuses to marry. He said he will not find a wife to make into his lady, that he already has one.
> 
> I thought you might like to know.

The ship does not rock her to sleep that night. The faint glow of her flame does nothing to burn away memory.

-

The land is rocky in a way that reminds Arya too much of the jagged coast along King’s Landing. She takes one look at the shore and returns below deck.

She does not join the men when they weighed anchor and rowed to shore.

-

The hammock stays still beneath her as the sunlight creeps in from an open hatch. They are anchored down as close to shore as they dare. She keeps below dock, away from the sight of the coastline, away from the ghosts of memory.

A dark figure flies through the open hatch and lands on the ropes that tie your hammock to the wooden poles. The raven waits patiently as Arya unties the note, once again flying away the moment it is free of its burden.

> Some memories you cannot hide from.

Arya takes the note note to the deck and throws it into the ocean.

She looks out into the horizon, ocean and air mixing until it’s nothing but uniform blue.

-

Her men find water and berries that the local wildlife can eat, berries that look close enough to ones she ate in Bravos that she is willing to risk it for something fresh.

She and her navigator decide to continue west, to follow the coastline and see where that may lead them.

They stay for a few days, long enough to replenish their water and to ensure the berries have no unsavory effects. They hunt for fresh meat and open another barrel of ale in celebration. It is a warm affair, the men jovial. Even Arya stays in good spirits, laughing with her men and joining in on their songs.

The evening winds down and the songs turn somber. They sing of lost loves and of family gone. They sing of war, but not the glory just the cold aftermath. Arya looks out from her place on the quarterdeck, the moon and the stars glow on the sea, the dark of the island shimmers as the moonlight hits the jagged rocks. Arya sees the ghosts dance on the shore. 

-

Arya never had the same dreams as her sister. She did not want to be a lady. She did not want to be a wife. She wanted to rule a castle, yes, but she did not want to do it in the name of someone else. She did not dream of dresses, of a maiden cloak around her shoulders.

She did dream of love, of family, of villagers to help and people to care for.

_You would be my lady,_ he had said years before, before she even knew what she had asked him.

He had a castle now, villagers to help and a whole section of the country to care for.

_None of it will be worth anything if you’re not with me._ He said that too, before he asked her to be his lady, different than that first time he said it.

“His lady wife,” she snorted as she crawled up the rigging, small enough and strong enough to do it quickly, to do it right.

The coastline changes as they sail past, from rocky to rolling hills and gently sloping beaches, and Arya stares blindly at it, caught up in memories and letter.

With an arm firmly around the ropes she pulls out the most recent letter from her meddling brother-king.

> We dance with our ghosts in different ways, sometimes you need to confront your fears.

“Cryptic as always Bran,” she says into the wind, aware that he hears her a world away.

-

The hammock sways with the storm, a quick summer squall that they can see the end of already, blue skies in the distance waiting to carry them onto the next part of their journey. She listens to the sound of the men on deck, those who replaced the first shift. She is still soaked to her bones, exhausted more from a dreary mood than from trying to the ship storm-ready so quickly.

Ghosts still dance behind her eyes, the frozen dead, the burning dead, green eyes and blues eyes and brown eyes. She has shut those eyes forever. No one never minded. Arya does.

She looks up at the wooden planks, water-sealed and sturdy. This is her penance, in a way. She spent years getting back to her family and when she did she couldn’t stay. She couldn’t look them in the eyes and pretend she was ok, pretend that she did not see the dead everywhere. She could not look at any of them and say that she deserved peace.

-

The next raven had no note, just a small leaf made of gold tied from a string around its neck. She places it around her neck and ignores the tears in her eyes.

-

There is no coast to follow anymore, just more open sea. They continue west, after a stop for fresh water and more fresh meat to supplement their slowly dwindling dried rations before the land disappeared to their backs.

“What do you hope to find?”

Her first mate stands next to her, map open in front of them as their navigator adds more details. They will need a new sheet soon.

“Honestly?” Arya asks, eyes fixed on Westeros. “At first I would have said adventure.” She looks up at him, unable to look at the symbols on the map that meant home. “Now? I think I’m just looking for peace.”

“You won’t find that on the sea, my lady,” her first mate responds with a sad smile. “That’s not why any of us are here. I suspect that’s not the reason for you either, not really.”

She snorts out her answer. “I think maybe we spend a little too much time together, if you can say something like that.”

“We’re on a ship my lady,” he laughs, “we can do nothing but spend time together.” His smile goes sad again, after the brief laughter. “We all saw things, my lady, in King’s Landing. Things that will haunt us for the rest of our lives. For most of us, we spent our whole life at sea. This is our home, this is familiar. That’s not the case for you. You’re running my lady, none of us judge you for that.”

Arya closes her eyes against the truth.

“Has my brother been sending you ravens as well?”

“No my lady, as you said, we just spend that much time together.”

-

The golden leaf is warm against her skin when she goes to sleep. She never takes it off, just lets it lay against her chest day in, day out. She does not let herself think, or so she tries.

The ship sways beneath her, but it does nothing to lure her to sleep.

“Some things you cannot out run,” she says into the darkness, feeling foolish as the words leave her mouth. “I am running.”

The darkness says nothing in reply.

-

They reach land two days later. They see ships first, ships of Yi Ti make fishing or loaded down with cargo. Her quartermaster smiles, happy to restore their depleted supplies. Her navigator smiles as well, smug that his prediction was true.

“What is west of Westeros?” He asks into the crowd.

“It’s just the east,” one of the crew members calls back.

Arya lets her eyes linger on the ships, on the port in the distance.

“What were you hoping to find?”

She startles, surprised that her first mate could sneak up on her. Surprised that she has reached a point where she can let her guard down at all.

“A reason to go home,” she replies, “to go home and know I deserve it.”

-

She cannot sleep, not with a feather mattress beneath her. Her crew would not let her sleep on the ship, not when there was comfortable accommodations worthy of their lady captain. Through the open window she hears the splash of the waves against the distant shore, the cries of the gulls. 

She sees the sun rise through her window, rising to greet her in the east and moving from her home in the west. The world is a sphere and her life is a cycle of death and destruction. The sun rises after the long night. Fields are razed and burned. They grow again.

Maybe, by the time she reaches west again, she will be like the crops after winter, budding and ready to grow.

-

> Sometimes you need to relearn how to be.

Arya reads the note before they leave port and head west again. This time they have a plan, they have rations for weeks before they port again and restock, aware of their path now that they are back in the known.

> Your family misses you.

The note is accompanied by another leaf, gold again but held together by a rope made from some type of grass. She never forgot the song, never really forgave Tom Sevenstrings for how often he sang the song to her and Gendry on their travels. It makes her smile now, to remember the good times mixed in with the rotten.

“Subtle,” she breathes out as she drapes the leaf around her neck. “Real subtle Bran.”

-

“Where are we headed my lady?”

Her first mate gave her a look over the map in her office. 

“Home, I think. Eventually.”

“And did you find what you hoped to find?”

She smiles, small but not sad. 

“Not yet,” she replies as she moves to roll up their incomplete map. “But by the time we make it back I think I will.”


End file.
